


Yorkshire Vignettes

by austenfan1990



Category: Last Tango In Halifax
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-02
Updated: 2014-10-18
Packaged: 2018-01-07 05:33:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1116115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/austenfan1990/pseuds/austenfan1990
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Starting in 1963, a couple of vignettes detailing Alan and Celia's lives and their thoughts about each other until their meeting in the first series of 'Last Tango in Halifax'. Contains some spoilers from Series 2.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1963 - Alan

**Author's Note:**

> My first 'Last Tango' fanfic, so I do apologise in advance if it's wildly out of character. Alan and Celia are definitely not mine and belong to the combined geniuses of Sally Wainwright, Derek Jacobi and Anne Reid.

Alan Buttershaw seemed to have made his way in the world. Not anything grand, of course, but in his own modest way. Twelve years after starting at Jessops, he had become manager at the local store in Elland. An achievement for the likes of him who left school at sixteen and hadn’t been up to university as was the fashion these days. His mum and dad were proud of him, especially when he wasn’t as outgoing and boisterous as his younger brother Ted who was still proving a handful. There was talk of him even immigrating to Australia of all places; ‘I’ll believe it when I see it!’ said Alan when Ted had come in from work one day and announced his plans. He was an assistant to one of the sheep farmers up north and being the more robust of the two brothers, it was like him to be more than willing to accede to a little adventure.

‘Why go all the way to Australia when you can make yourself a living here in Yorkshire?’ asked Alan one night when they were down at the local pub and when he realised that this wasn’t merely another of Ted’s whimsical fancies.

‘Because there’s a future there, you dozy bugger,’ replied Ted, matter-of-factly.

‘Well, isn’t there a future here in England? I mean, Australia isn’t just down road, you know. It’s halfway ‘cross the world.’

‘I don’t mean to say I’m going off this minute. Oh aye, sheep farming’s all right in Yorkshire at the moment but that don’t mean to say that it’ll last forever. Look at the coal mines, Alan. One day, I’m telling you, those miners will be out of work.’

‘But this is Yorkshire, not Durham or South Wales, lad. And when have you ever been interested in mining?’

‘Not to beat about the bush but I have done a bit of coal mining meself, just so you know. Just don’t tell mum and dad about that.’

‘Well, I never,’ murmured Alan, taking a sip of his pint. ‘You definitely haven’t lost the knack to surprise, Ted.’

‘And I bloody hope I never do.’

Alan looked into his brother’s face and noted, not for the first time, that it seemed to be carved of tougher stuff than his. Whereas he looked kindly and gentle with an air of vulnerability which seemed to draw all sorts of womanly attention to him – whether it was motherly or otherwise – Ted Buttershaw looked like the sort of fellow who won the Battle of Britain with his dark eyes, strong jaw and his overall impression of confidence and determination. He was half-surprised that Ted never enlisted in the armed forces, even after their two-year stints in National Service. ‘Churchill would have loved him,’ murmured their mum as she saw him off on his first day and wearing his khaki uniform. Alan had to admit that Ted looked a great deal better than he did in army togs. And if memory served him correctly, he also came across Ted’s photo in the enlistment brochures on his way to work one summer. Aye, there was no need to fret over his younger brother since he was certainly going places in the world.

In a way, he envied Ted. He could never imagine himself uprooting himself on a whim and dashing off to the other side of the world. No, life was too comfortable at the moment for that. At the age of twenty-eight, he was settled, had a happy married life and not two months ago, had welcomed a newborn daughter, Gillian. Even venturing outside of Yorkshire for the odd business trip to London seemed daring and adventurous.

But he hadn’t always been so wary and it was at times like these when he listened to his brother’s talk about sheep farming on a farm in Australia, he remembered a more carefree lad who had often been out in the evening jiving down at the town hall. Eileen had always been there, nearly always claiming the first dance but no one but Celia Armitage had set his heart racing when it came to dancing with the girls. They had never gone out together though they had been on trips and things with the rest of their friends and she had often encouraged him to be more daring, more confident. Perhaps it was an aura she had around her for he saw other shy lads like himself not lacking in confidence when she was around. And sometimes, even twelve years after being stood up, he wondered whether she had felt the same way as he did about her.

‘“Now heaven walks on earth.”’

‘Eh, what’s that you say?’ Ted was looking at him in bemusement.

‘Oh, nothing,’ said Alan quickly, hiding his embarrassment by taking other sip of beer. ‘Nothing.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dates given are, of course, estimates and based on the information given in Sally Wainwright's screenplay for the first episode of the first series which you can find on the BBC's 'Writersroom' Script Library. In that, she gives both Alan and Celia's age as seventy-four and mentions that Alan was sixteen in 1951 when they last met. Thus they were both born in around 1935.


	2. 1963 - Celia

‘Now, Celia. Everything is going to be quite all right. We can work this out,’ came Kenneth’s voice on the telephone.

Celia’s first instinct was to say, ‘You lying sod.’ Then she realised she wasn’t bothered and hung up on him instead. It had been two months since Caroline’s birth – and her near brush with death – and now she was meant to be recovering. But she was damned if she could relax now that she realised that while she was in hospital and giving birth to their daughter, he was off somewhere sleeping with another woman.

It hadn’t taken long for Celia to recognise that her marriage to Kenneth had been a mistake. Three months after the wedding, she had understood far too late what sort of man he was. It wasn’t as if he was bad-tempered or abusive. Kenneth Dawson was none of those things but his greatest failing that he knew all too well that he was attractive to women and made no attempt to dissuade them from approaching and seducing him. Not that it was all one-sided for he had made his conquests too. A real _Don Juan_ , she thought. At first, she thought it was merely him being unused to being a married man and that in time, he’d settle down. It took four years of marriage before Caroline entered the world and even he had to muck her birth up.

Poor Caroline, thought Celia.

She didn’t dare say, ‘Poor me’, for after all, she had wanted to be married to him. Dazzled, she had been, by his university degree and his prospects. She wanted a nice house with a garden and a car and now she had them. Her parents – who had none of these things – were over the moon, of course. And yet, she had never been more miserable in her life. Most of all, it was guilt she was feeling for Caroline because, really, a mother should be anything but miserable at a time like this.

Loneliness was also something she was experiencing for she had no one to talk to. She could hardly tell her mother for she would be shocked and appalled and speaking to her sister Muriel was out of the question. She simply would have blabbered on to their mother and then the cat would have been out of the bag. She sighed. She was being unfair to Muriel too but she couldn’t help it. It wasn’t that she was a bad sort but ever since Muriel had gone off with Frank, Celia’s relationship with her only sister had soured. Other than the obligatory birthday and Christmas greetings, they never spoke nowadays. However, even Muriel’s presence would have been a comfort now.

And it was in desperately unhappy times such as these that her thoughts strayed to Alan Buttershaw. Names and faces of old schoolmates came and went but to her surprise, she always remembered Alan. It wasn’t really a surprise actually, she admitted. Call it what you will, either an adolescent crush or a schoolgirl’s fancy, but she had truly been in love with him. She used to watch him from her parents' sitting room window as he passed by in the street, secretly half-hoping that he’d turn round but he never did for his mates – now what were their names again? Barry? Harry? And ah yes, Maurice – were inevitably close by.

If she had a memory in which she was truly happy, it was when he had finally asked her out. And if someone had asked her which memory made her feel otherwise, she would have said the same. It was a bittersweet memory and if she could help it, she avoided recalling it to mind. For on the one hand, it had been a triumph of sorts. After months, perhaps years of waiting, he had asked her out and she could hardly believe it. It was what happened afterwards that saddened her, or rather what didn’t happen, because they never did go out and Alan had never replied to the letter she had left with Eileen Pickford.

He had probably been angry with her for breaking off their date. She could very well understand that but she would have guessed that his anger would have abated after a while. Alan, after all, was a gentle soul and she couldn’t imagine him being cross for long. Of course, she could have written to him but it was the uncertainty and the fear of a cold reception that finally put her off. And by then, Kenneth had entered her world and by God how she wished that she hadn’t been so easily mesmerised by him now.

‘Oh, Alan,’ she sighed wistfully. ‘I do wish you had written. Or I did in spite of everything.’

The telephone rang again and Caroline gave a cry from the other room. Resolutely ignoring the telephone, Celia went to tend to her daughter.


	3. 1975 - Alan

‘Now, Gillian, take care!’ cried Alan as his daughter rushed past him. Her twelfth birthday today – where on earth did twelve years go so quickly? He was only allowed a moment to think because here she was again, taking his hand and dragging him towards the car, her long brown hair blowing about her face as the wind renewed its assault upon the heath.

‘Come on, Dad! Uncle Ted can walk faster than you can.’

‘Well, I’m not Uncle Ted,’ he chuckled good-humouredly as he endeavoured to catch his breath. ‘Besides, I’m sure that not even your Uncle Ted wouldn’t be out of breath after running up and down the moors like we have.’

He had taken Gillian out in the car to see the moors as a treat; like her uncle, she loved the country and he couldn’t remember seeing her happier than when she was outdoors. He’d never profess to be a bookish man but he did tell her a bit about the Brontë sisters and their dark tales about the moors although he suspected that half of the things he told her were completely wrong. It didn’t matter; Gillian always loved listening to him regardless of all the nonsense he came up with.

Now it was getting dark and it was at least an hour’s drive back home. Eileen hadn’t joined them as she had a cold but she did promise to have dinner ready by the time they got back. They got into the car, Gillian sweeping away an errant lock of his hair – now ash-blond – which had blown across his forehead once she got into the seat next to him.

‘Thanks, love,’ he said.

Just like Gillian to take care of him without thinking of herself first. Harry often joked that it was his daughter who was the parent and not the other way round. Alan swore that he was no better or worse than the rest of the fathers in Yorkshire, even the rest of the country, but it seemed that soon as she could walk and talk, she had always looked out for him. ‘You were always a modest bugger, Buttershaw,’ Harry had once said. ‘Wish my daughter looked after me half so well as your Gillian.’

‘What do you think Mum’s going to have ready for dinner?’ asked Gillian.

‘Reckon you’re going to have some of your favourites tonight,’ smiled Alan and he patted her affectionately on the back.

‘Oh, like cottage pie…and ice cream…and chocolate?’

‘Well, I hope not all at the same time. You’re going to have a right awful stomach ache if you carry on like that.’

‘Like the time you and Uncle Harry had all those pints down at the pub last year?’

‘Now, now, that were different!’ said Alan quickly and reddening a little. He had hoped that Gillian had forgotten about that. ‘Harry and me were simply celebrating his sister’s wedding.’

Come to think of it, how on earth had his then eleven-year-old daughter come to know of it? Racking his brains, he suddenly recalled that he had indeed had a pint too many. Alan Buttershaw was, like when he was sober, a kindly drunk. He’d seen liquor do awful things to some lads but when some became aggressive or sentimental, he became giddy like a schoolboy. He remembered waking up in bed the next morning with a terrible headache, having no recollection of what had happened the previous evening. It being a Sunday, Gillian had been at home and had no doubt Eileen had told her what had happened.

‘C’mon, Dad. I were only teasing.’ Gillian was laughing now and despite his embarrassment, Alan could not help joining in.

‘Impish little lass,’ he murmured and looked at his daughter fondly.

Sometimes when a spot of low spirits struck him – which happened very rarely, mind – he would think of Celia and whether they would have had a life together had she not moved to Sheffield. He wondered how he would have summoned up the courage to ask her to marry him; his sixteen-year-old self had taken months to decide to even ask her out.

What if she had said yes? His heart would always skip a little at this – it was amazing really that even after twenty-four years Celia still had this effect on him. Other women, even Eileen, had never affected him as much as she did. When it came to Celia, it was like having a pint too many: he became as giddy as a schoolboy.

If she had stayed, and if he had asked her and if she _had_ said yes… Alan knew it was pointless to conjecture but the thoughts came to him nonetheless. Would the life they had be as happy as the one he was living now – perhaps even more so? Or would they have been at each other’s throats with regret, misery and anger reigning over them and he shuddered at the possibility. It was unlikely, of course, knowing his character and what he knew of Celia’s, but still it was a possibility.

The car slowed to a halt and Alan turned to Gillian. She had fallen asleep, probably worn out after all that running about the moors and he smiled. Pondering and wondering was all very well but if he hadn’t married Eileen, this little lass would never have existed and a life without his Gillian was very hard to imagine indeed.

‘C’mon, love,’ he said, rousing her gently. ‘We’re home.’

‘Took us long enough.’

He chuckled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay in updating; life and work (not to mention writer's block) got in the way! Hopefully the next chapters will come along more quickly.
> 
> And the colour of Alan's hair when he was younger has never been mentioned in the series but since Derek Jacobi's hair was a sort of ash-blond when he was in his forties, I've decided to incorporate that here.


	4. 1976 - Celia

She could have killed him. Really, she could have in all probability killed him and not had a single regret afterwards. Of course the police would have had numerous questions waiting for her but their queries were probably child’s play compared to this prison of a marriage she had endured for years which had furnished her with nerves of steel.

Well, perhaps not quite. And perhaps the steel wasn’t quite a hundred percent. After all, it was clearly panic that had flooded through her when Kenneth had fallen off the stepladder in the kitchen. Heaven knows why he had decided to paint the ceiling as he was useless at anything DIY and he knocked himself out against the counter for his trouble. She had called an ambulance, of course, but by the time the paramedics had arrived, Kenneth had regained consciousness. They had taken him to hospital regardless and the doctors gave him a good look over. It turned out that he hadn’t done too much damage other than getting a nasty bruise for himself and it was only then that she swore that if another chance ever presented itself, she wouldn’t hesitate to smother that hateful, smug face of his with a pillow.

‘Goodness, I sound like a raving maniac,’ she murmured to herself as the thought came unbidden to her mind.

Or one of those mad Romans in that new series on the telly where everyone seemed to be getting killed off left, right and centre.

Caroline seemed to understand her aversion to going out and more often than not, she found her daughter joining her on the couch in front of the telly and when _I, Claudius_ was on, talking animatedly about the various Roman personalities being portrayed onscreen. Celia had no idea how on earth her thirteen-year-old daughter knew about all of them but then Caroline told her that they were covering the Romans in history this term, it became perfectly clear. It also explained why her room was littered with books on Ancient Rome; Caroline was the bookish sort, she was glad to say. Perhaps she took after her in a way, she thought, for she had been pretty good at school.

That comforted her a little, reminding her that maybe she wasn’t a complete failure as a mother after all, and that at least one of her daughter’s parents was having a good influence. Caroline could learn nothing but bad habits and deceit from her father.

God help me if Caroline had turned out to be a boy, thought Celia, for then the chances of a son taking after Kenneth and chasing round girls was all the more higher and life at home would be hellish indeed. It was already bad enough dealing with her wayward husband; she would go mad if she had another Lothario on her hands.

For although she knew that Caroline considered her cool at times, and even rather strict, she loved her daughter dearly. She wondered if Kenneth wasn’t the way he was and had been a husband who was caring and attentive that she would ended up being a different mother; perhaps more softer, gentler and yielding. Celia knew she possessed a sharp tongue but looking back, she hadn’t been like that at all before she got married.

Maybe it was all Kenneth’s fault. ‘He made me like this!’ she could cry like a fallen heroine in a Victorian novel, but angry and unhappy as she was, she knew it was much more complicated than that. For she had changed too, whether consciously or otherwise, and she had not made an effort to stop such a change. In a way, it was a means of protecting herself, a defence mechanism as it were, and on rare occasions of self-awareness she felt sorry for Caroline who seemed to be bearing the brunt of it. Caroline herself was naturally torn between both of them; for Kenneth was her father after all, and Celia could only grudgingly admire her husband for scraping some semblance of respect from his daughter for he had lost all of hers long ago.

So in lieu of a stable, loving marriage which she was clearly never going to be blessed with, her attention was diverted to Caroline and her progress at school and she was glad to see her doing so well. The teachers were in agreement with her that Caroline had the potential to be something one day, perhaps even getting into the grand old universities. It admittedly was an enticing prospect as none of her family had ever got into university, much less somewhere like Oxford or Cambridge! But that was still some years away, she mused and with a dark afterthought reminded herself that it had been the allure of a university degree that had been one of the reasons she had ended up with Kenneth.

‘No, no, Celia,’ she said to herself, ‘Best not to get ahead of yourself, lass.’

There came the rapid footfalls of stockinged feet on the carpeted stairs outside her bedroom and she knew before the door was open that Caroline was coming up to see her.

‘Mum?’ she said softly. ‘The telly’s on and I think _I, Claudius_ is starting in a bit.’

‘Thank you, love,’ said Celia with a small smile. And she went down with her daughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, apologies for the delay and hopefully I'll make better progress with the next chapters.
> 
> And please forgive the cheeky references to and the mentioning of Derek Jacobi's probably most famous television series, I just couldn't resist it!


End file.
